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Letter #15: Sourcing content ideas
Expert interview on talking to customer-facing teams for content ideas.
Holla folks!
How’s the new week treating you?
Some of you might be getting into the swing of things after having started last week. Others who started yesterday might be a tad bit (okay, a lot) overwhelmed (points at myself) 😳
Whichever boat you’re in, I’m sending you good vibes. Aaaand, a brilliant expert interview with one of my industry favorites – Jason Bradwell, business consultant for B2B companies and host of the B2B Bite newsletter.
Today’s topic: sourcing content ideas from customer-facing teams. These include sales, customer success, and account management teams.
According to Jason, these folks are your best bet when you can’t talk to customers directly. The reason? “These are teams that can shed the most light on pain points, use cases, and how your solution is perceived versus competitors.”
So as per the drill, I asked Jason for:
A mistake he made as he talked to customer-facing teams for sourcing content ideas.
An actionable tip to get you one step closer to sourcing ideas this way.
And, a secret tip for getting more audience-relevant content ideas.
Lezz go.
👉 Learn from Jason’s mistake: Asking open open-ended questions such as ‘what do you think would make great content.’
In fact, Jason calls such requests too broad that “almost set colleagues up to fail – leaving their imagination to run wild which can lead to paralysis.”
The solution then, of course, is to get specific in your request.
👉 Do this today: Create a ‘content hub’ on Slack or Teams.
Use this as your channel where “members are encouraged to post great industry-focused blogs, videos, and other pieces as a source of inspiration,” recommends Jason.
“Not only does this allow everyone to get a sense of the benchmark you’re competing against, but it also creates a sense of internal community around your goal.”
👉 The secret tip for sourcing content ideas the correct way: Instil healthy competition.
Jason suggests: “Healthy competition can be used to great effect when sourcing content ideas from other teams, particularly sales.”
Here’s how:
“Celebrate the successes of where colleagues contribute loudly and often. As soon as one customer is won by a commercial colleague with the help of a piece of well-placed content, the dominos will start to fall and everyone will want a piece of the action.”
So today’s takeaways:
Be specific in your ask.
Create a safe space for sharing content ideas and inspiration.
Celebrate successful content ideas sourced from other teams to push others from more teams to share more ideas.
And that’s a wrap.
Pooling content ideas from other sources too? Use this framework (includes free template) to filter ideas and finalize the best, most relevant ones.
Goodbye and good luck for the rest of the week,
Masooma
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'these folks [customer-facing teams] are your best bet when you can’t talk to customers directly. The reason? “These are teams that can shed the most light on pain points, use cases, and how your solution is perceived versus competitors.”' Yes, yes, yes!